April 23, 2025 • 43 mins
Meet Osea, a bruja, activist powerhouse and personal friend of mine making good trouble in Nueva York. Today's episode explores the complexities of cultural identity, language, and heritage. We discuss our personal experiences with education and activism, particularly the importance of understanding and challenging historical narratives. We delve into the ongoing impact of colonialism and the representation of indigenous peoples, and discuss the oversimplified views of history and identity held by people in the broader US culture.
To find out more about Osea's activity and support the community:
@NYCIcewatch on IG
00:00 - Osea's Journey
02:56 - Identity and Heritage
03:49 - Cultural Background and Family History
08:10- Language and Cultural Education
09:29- Challenging Stereotypes and Misconceptions
13:03- Activism and Advocacy in Education
16:00 - Reclaiming Historical Narratives
18:42 - The Role of Education in Identity Formation
24:08 - Contemporary Issues in Identity and Culture
33:59 - The Complexity of Indigenous Identities
39:46 - The Continuation of Colonial Narratives
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nicte-Ha (00:00):
My interview with this week's guest will be broken
into several episodes.
As a friend of mine for manyyears, Osea is a bruja, an
activist, and a curandera in NewYork City.
Because of the depth of ourconnection, our conversations
were extremely wide-ranging,covering history, identity,
belief, family, racism,colonialism, spirituality, and
(00:22):
religion.
This first episode is anintroduction to her, her history
of activism, and the educationthat she had from her family to
craft her own identity.
Thank you for tuning in forpart one of my conversation with
Osea.
I hope that you find ourconversations as fascinating and
thought-provoking as I did.
And I've known her for many,many years, and I can't wait to
(01:23):
have this conversation becauseshe has one of the most
interesting personal journeysthat I have had the privilege to
hear a little bit about.
And so I'm excited to get intoher history, her journey, and
her activism and her building ofcommunity.
Thank you for having me.
Osea (01:44):
It's only taken us a couple decades to sit down.
Nicte-Ha (01:46):
Just a couple of decades.
We had we had someconversations about this before.
True, true.
Life just keeps getting it.
It's true.
Before the world was right, andbefore the world was like so on
fire.
Right.
But we could we can talk aboutthat later.
So first, um, can you talkabout how you came to the name
Osea and what it means to youand how you chose it?
Osea (02:06):
Sure.
So I'm pretty active inactivist circles here in New
York City.
And so for our own safety, wetend to keep changing names
pretty often.
Not our government names,obviously, but you know, we use
other pseudonyms uh for thepurpose of what we do, and you
just kind of keep rotating them.
And so I've gone through a few.
(02:27):
This is not my only one, butone of the things that I was
teased about to a certain degreeis my Spanish is a mix of a lot
of the people that I've beenaround.
But the folks that I grew uparound and learned Spanish from,
it was Mexico City Spanish.
And so one of the things thatwill often happen if you speak
Mexico City Spanish is theinterjection like, like this,
(02:50):
like this, like this, is osea.
Osea, da da da.
So I would explain things topeople and then clarify with the
like.
You know, lo que necesitas, esque so because I would interject
oseas all the time into thethings I was saying in very
filango Spanish, o sea, kind ofstuck.
Nicte-Ha (03:09):
One of the things that I try and highlight in this
podcast and in my interviews isthat so many of us, particularly
Latinos, but or mestizos orhowever we want to identify
those of us here in LatinAmerica who are a mix of the
descendants of the indígena, theindigenous people who lived
here before colonization, thecolonizers, slaves that they
(03:34):
brought from West Africa.
You know, we're this rich mixof people.
And so some of us we're, youknow, the colors of the rainbow
dark hair, curly hair, lighthair, blonde, blue-eyed, dark
skin, light skin, median skin,and all of those, you know,
those physical features, thoseaccidents of genetics, they also
impact our daily lives, how weidentify, how we're raised, our
(03:57):
experiences in our community,and also with the larger
American society.
And so just if you if you'recomfortable sharing and talking
about how you understood thatidentity when you were younger
and how that's evolved over theyears.
I know we talked a little bitabout it in our pre-show
(04:18):
conversations, but just layingthe groundwork for people so
that they can understand yourjourney toward your current
identity and how you saw thatwhen you were younger.
Osea (04:26):
Sure.
And I'll sort of plug this asthe places where we live and who
we're surrounded by cause thatto continue to evolve.
All right, so I'll I'll getinto that and sort of tracing
this history.
So, you know, I was born in theUnited States, mixed parentage,
you know, one parent fromMexico of Mestiza heritage, and
(04:47):
one parent from the UnitedStates from the South, Irish,
British heritage, but I'd saymore like Irish American and
very, very southern.
And so that already, in and ofitself, is like two very
different worlds combining.
And my parents met outside ofthe United States because my mom
spoke a whole bunch oflanguages, and my dad only spoke
one.
And my mom found him on a trainwith a bunch of students and
(05:09):
was like, This guy is a hotmess.
He does not know where he'sgoing to take his students to go
stay.
And I was like looking at a bigfold-out map.
This is 1970s, long before youknow internet was available.
And you know, it's not exactlylike yellow pages of like go
find a hotel while you're ridinga train in Italy.
And so my mom spoke fourlanguages and basically was
(05:31):
like, Can I help you?
Because this is concerning.
As my dad's like trying to findsomething on a map while he's
already on the train and sheunderstood English among the
four languages that she spokeand was like, Just I'm gonna
help you.
Like, get off the train at thenext stop.
So I, you know, I laughedbecause you know, my dad was a
(05:51):
hyper, you know, confident, um,you know, very skilled guy,
renaissance man, he'd been inthe military.
But I just laughed becausetraveling through Europe, my mom
was the boss.
Like, she just was like, getoff the train, I'm gonna handle
this.
And so she went and negotiated,you know, their stay for him
and like all the kids inItalian, and actually like
brought down the price and soforth, and was like ready to be
(06:12):
like, All right, good luck,American, with whatever nonsense
you have planned.
And everybody was like, No, youcannot leave us here.
We can't speak the samelanguage.
Please don't, please stay,please hang out with us.
So, you know, we are lost.
Nicte-Ha (06:27):
We are lost, we are monolingual Americans.
Osea (06:30):
Help us, monolingual Americans, and so you know, my
mom, I guess, felt bad and wasalso like, fine, I guess I'll
take a three-day paid retreat atthis, you know, pensione to
help out this poor Americanteacher and all of these high
schoolers.
And so that was the beginningof my dad trying to kick it to
my mom, and then my mom justlike went back to Mexico, was
(06:51):
like, okay, American, bye, afterall of that, and then it was
like a long distance, you know,him trying to convince her to
come to the states.
So, you know, you have verydifferent migration stories,
very different stories whereit's like people, you know, for
whatever their reasons, theyleft their home country and they
felt an intense need to be inthe United States or to get out
of their home country becausethe long history in Latin
(07:13):
America of things going sidewaysfor various and sundry reasons.
It's sometimes, you know, ourown country has some culpability
in Operation Condor.
But the situation of, you know,my own heritage, yeah, yeah,
that's like a whole otherconversation, right?
The situation of my ownparentage is yeah, I could just
do a podcast about like how wehave gotten in the midst of you
(07:34):
know destabilizing all of LatinAmerica.
But, anyways, my personalsituation was that my mom was
like, I'm not needing to leaveMexico, thanks.
Like, your country hasproblems.
So I think that that's a reallyimportant place to start with
how I'm explaining even my ownidentity, is in no way, shape,
or form did my mother see comingto the US as like the huge
(07:55):
upgrade, right?
She had a career, she was happywith her career, she had an
education, she traveled freely,independently as a woman in
Europe, obviously helping, youknow, my poor father handle his
life, right, while he wastraveling in Europe.
She was a very independent gal,right?
And very proud of what she wasand what she was capable of.
(08:16):
She spoke four languages.
So coming to the States for hertook a lot of convincing.
And I think that I grew up withthe impression that my mother
is like, well, I'm here now.
They started off in themountain west.
They started off in themountain west, like when she
moved to the States, she startedoff in the mountain west with
him.
I was born in the mountainwest, and it was cold and there
(08:38):
was snow.
And she was like, Okay, Ithought this was cute to like
come and visit for skiing, butthe I was not sold on this bill
of goods that this would justcontinue to be like this.
And so by the time I was five,my parents moved down to Florida
because mom was not having it,and dad was not gonna have an
unhappy mom.
So there's just there, there'sa lot to unpack there that like
(09:00):
when my mom got to the States,you know, she moved away from
everything that she knewculturally, linguistically, and
so forth.
And so was very adamant onraising my sister and I 100%
exclusively in Spanish, likewith books with materials that
would detail to us our heritage,our history, and absolutely no
backing down and being like, oh,well, you're in the state, so
(09:23):
your identity is just this, oryou know, that one is better
than the other, one is dominantto the other.
Like, no.
I grew up with tons and tonsand tons of educational
materials, um, and just sort ofbeing drilled into me about like
the the Mesoamerican history,um, not just the history of
Mexico as a country, butMesoamerican history,
pre-Columbian history,understanding belief systems,
(09:45):
practices.
They were not calledmythologies, because mythology
is a way of like passing offsomething as being a fairy tale
or a story.
It was it was taught as likethese were beliefs and
practices.
And we had a bunch of art in myhome growing up that were like
replicas of pre-Columbian art,like primarily Mexica art in our
house.
So, like statues and sculpturesand and so forth.
(10:07):
So I grew up with a prettyinteresting from the time I was
pretty young, working knowledgeof all of this history,
heritage, and then language,like I said, where I I spoke
Spanish before, I spoke English,but I grew up where the
household was really 50-50English-Spanish, and then the
Spanish that I speak is alsoinfluenced by Nahuatl.
(10:28):
You know, there are a lot ofwords and phrases that are that
come from Nahuatl, and soindigenous language, right?
And so even when I was inschool, I felt like I was
correcting people all the timefor the time I was a little kid,
because in the United States,there's a very interestingly
limited view by many of what aMexican is or who a Mexican
(10:51):
could be or look like, or youknow, the stereotypes or that is
on both sides of the culture,too.
Correct.
And so I, you know, from thetime I was very little, I was
definitely course correctingeverybody around me because they
would make statements like,Well, you don't look Mexican.
I'm like, really, how much timehave you spent in Mexico?
(11:12):
I'm just curious.
Like, I would love to know whatyour findings are based off of.
Because what if I were to sayto you, you don't look
Anglo-Saxon, right?
Like, you know, that this isbut I mean, like, these are
things that would have from thetime I was little where they
would be like, Well, you don'ttalk Mexican.
I'm like, guess what?
Talking Mexican's not alanguage, bruh.
You know, I'm so sad for youthat you only speak one.
(11:33):
That sounds very limiting.
So, and you barely speak itwell.
Yikes.
So I grew up very, very sassyin terms of being very proud of
all the things that I am.
And I think what helped is justhaving parents that also
encouraged the sassiness.
My mom was very insistent,where she was like, This was
Mexico.
Let's go back to the 1800s andtalk about all of this territory
(11:56):
was ours, right?
So I got into it.
I think I remember in likeseventh grade, I had a history
teacher that tried to teach someother version of history.
And I was like, no, no, sir,hold on one second.
Like, let me clarify some ofthe things that you were saying,
because that's not what thisis.
And also, like the Texans didthis, and they, you know, they
broke a promise that they hadmade to the Mexican government
(12:17):
about becoming Mexican citizens,they weren't even Texans, they
were Mexican citizens, correct.
And so, and and the teacherdidn't want to hear it, and so I
remember I went home and I waslike, Mom, I'm gonna need to
bring in some of those bookswith the photographs, and so I
remember coming back to schoolthe next day in seventh grade
with like a stack of historicalbooks.
I was literally, I was like, Iwas like, sir, I hate to break
(12:41):
this to you, but everythingyou're saying is wrong, right?
Like, my people are studiedpeople.
Um everything you're saying iswrong.
Here's all the evidence ofthat.
Like, here are the the signedagreements which were broken by
the people in Texas.
Like, so let's get into it.
And and the guy got so mad, hegot so so mad, he wanted to like
send me out of the class.
I was like, Yeah, let me gotake it up with our assistant
(13:03):
principal since you don't seemto know how to teach the
material.
I'm good, and just like walkedout with my books to the AP,
like, hi, no, I'm very concernedabout the quality of my
education because it seems likeum your person isn't qualified
over here.
So can we please get a check inon this curriculum?
Again, probably like 12 or 13years old.
So, and then my dad would justlike come raging in because
again, he was an educator, andhe'd be like, Why?
(13:26):
Why are you guys not qualified?
Like, what part of what mydaughter showed you did not
clarify the fact that thisperson has not accurately
prepared their curriculum forstudy?
He, I should also point out,was a history teacher.
Like my schools, my classmatescaught it all day, every day.
We were just like a wreckingball of not only am I not going
(13:46):
to stand down, like not only amI not going to be like, okay,
you know, I'm gonna just piledive through all of this, and
I'm not going to stop until youcorrect this, right?
So, my history of whatever youwant to call it, activism,
advocacy, fight the power whenit's wrong, right?
Like that is from tiny, and youknow, it and a lot of it came
(14:07):
out of education and came out ofthe refuse to allow the stories
of my people, our people, to betaught in a denigrating way.
Like I remember again goingthrough history courses where
(14:33):
the very little that they wouldsay about Mesoamericans is like
colonization.
And you know, they would eithertalk about Columbus or they
would talk about the history ofthe Cortes, the conquistadors,
etc.
And I was like, let me get thisstraight.
You're gonna skip over howadvanced the civilization was,
you're gonna skip over the factthat the Spanish came with
(14:53):
diseases and they had no runningwater, like they didn't have
the same kind of aqueducts, theydidn't have the same level of
technology.
Oh, but our people were theinferior ones.
Like, no, no, no, no, no.
Check this out.
And so, like I said, I wouldshow up at school with all kinds
of like books and historicaldocuments.
I'm going to the library, I wasextra, I was extra, extra, just
(15:15):
to be like, you really need torewrite this curriculum because
it's trashed.
Like the fact that you thinkthat the focus of our people is
simply on how they wereconquered, and it has nothing to
do with their historicalrelevance, right?
As an empowered and intelligentand artistic empire.
Like, not that I like empires,I'm kind of anti-imperialist,
(15:36):
but the point of my story islike, how are you gonna erase
the history, the relevance, thecontributions of hundreds of
nations of native people andjust tell the stories of a
couple of Spaniards that franklybrought a lot of disease and
trafficked the people that theyencountered?
I didn't realize that historywas supposed to focus on the
criminals, right?
(15:57):
When you point it out that way,it sounds really gross.
Like, why are we focusing onthe criminals and not the
people, you know, that forhundreds and hundreds of years
established something relevantof meaning, right?
Because we do this for theRomans, we do this for the
Greeks.
We have plenty of othercultures and civilizations that
we emphasize their art, theirhistory, their literature, their
contributions to society.
(16:18):
Why should it be any differentfor these massively impactful
cultures of the Americas?
So that was my fight in school.
I was I was just not having it.
That expanded definitely intolike the rest of the Latin
American world where they'd wantto play the same game with you
know the Caribbean.
And I was like, I'm not eventhat, but I know you're wrong.
(16:39):
Since clearly you got thiswrong the first time.
Let me come back at you withsome more information.
My history teacher, may he restin peace.
He's no longer with us.
He used to call himself Emperorand then his last name, and he
had that little like placard onhis desk.
But my history teacher made mea little placard and it was like
comandante in my name, becauseevery time I would come to
(17:00):
class, he already knew that Iwas gonna come into class on 11
ready to debate anybody.
And like I said, to the creditof this teacher in the schools
that I went to, when I was inhigh school, I wasn't in I was
in an internationalbaccalaureate program.
So badass.
I don't know how much folksknow about international
baccalaureate programs.
I know about IB.
Nicte-Ha (17:18):
Well, and also like the focus on IB is like global
citizenship, knowledge,project-based learning,
presentations, independentresearch.
There's a lot of really goodstuff in IB programming.
Osea (17:31):
So I was I was blessed to be in a public school IB program
and that encouraged debate,right?
That encouraged criticalreasoning, that encouraged
databased questions and reasonand so forth.
They thankfully did not shut itdown.
You know, whether I was inSpanish class or history class
or even like English literature,you know, whenever we covered a
topic or a subject, especiallythat related to Latin America or
(17:54):
Afro-Latin Caribbean, and Iwould come with heat for my
classmates and some of theirconclusions, you know, and
presumptions historically thatagain were very white
Eurocentric.
I was blessed and that I hadprofessors that were like, I'm
gonna let y'all deal with her.
Like I'm not, I'm not gonnastep in.
And then the pushback was justmake sure that you always have
evidence for what you're saying,make sure, right, that you're
(18:15):
thinking critically, that you'reanalyzing the bias of your
sources, like things that Ithink would be really helpful
today and would get us out ofsome of the shitshow that we're
in, right?
In modern society, if more ofus had that kind of intellectual
development.
Um instead of reading.
Nicte-Ha (18:30):
Well, and also, I mean, you know, it speaks to
your parents, you know, like myparents definitely, my mom was
very invested in making surethat we knew, you know, the
people's history of the UnitedStates before that book got
written.
Right.
So shout out to her therewasn't as much of a focus on
like pushing it inside theclassroom, but she would see
(18:52):
what we got and then she'd belike, let me tell you what this
really is, or let me tell youwhat was happening around this.
But most of her focus was onthe black experience in the
United States because her dad isblack and her great-grandfather
or her grandfather was black,and so sh her connection to the
(19:13):
history of the United States andher, you know, desire to make
sure that we knew at least someof the terrible history of the
states um was through that lens.
So there was a little bit offocus.
She knew a little bit aboutLatin America, and she she's an
extensive reader, but I thinkthat was less of a focus.
And plus it was in California,which is like 75% mexicanos.
(19:37):
My hometown was actuallymajority, majority mexicano or
majority Latino.
Interestingly, the Californiahistory, there was more of a
focus on Spanish occupation ofCalifornia versus like Mexican
history at all.
Like I don't think I don't eventhink we learned about Latin
American history in our historyclasses.
(19:57):
Like I think it was maybe apage.
Osea (19:59):
So I'm I'm thinking about this because I'm like, boy, did
I force the hand of my teachers.
No, I mean that's awesome.
That they so at one point, likebringing it all back.
I don't even remember whatprovoked it, but I think there
was something that I read or sawthat was about the American
Indian movement and LeonardPelletier and the standoff at
Wounded Knee, and I would notlet go.
(20:21):
I think that, you know, we werewe were at some point in school
studying something that had todo with the tribes of, you know,
the original peoples of theUnited States.
And I remember like maybe wewere like talking about Custer.
I just remember like readingthis and I was like, this sounds
like ass.
Like, this sounds like there'smuch more to unpack here than
(20:41):
however they're telling thisstory.
And then I just ended up onthis really deep dive into
wounded knee, its history, theneventually come across the story
of Leonard Prelte, the AmericanIndian movement.
And again, I just remembergoing to school with my stacks
and stacks of books, and then myteachers just looking at me
like, What?
We were we were just gonna talkabout Custer.
(21:03):
I was like, no, we are not.
We're gonna talk about whatCuster represented exactly for
me, and we're gonna and we'regonna go into like this whole
saga and how this continued toplay out, and he's a political
prison, all this, and I thinkthat my teachers were like, Oh
god, we should have never, weshould have never, right?
So that's why I'm laughingbecause when I tell you, I was
(21:24):
just like this constant littleupstart that whenever it came to
telling the stories ofnon-white people, right, and
they would try to like glossover things or or paint things
in such a way of you know,people being the victims less
than, right, and never and neverbeing right, the the the
autonomous actors of their ownexperience.
(21:46):
Like even the story of HarrietTubman was really watered down,
and it's like I don't know whythey wanted to focus so hard on
her being narcoleptic.
And I was like, this woman wasa military genius.
She led campaigns of ofstealing Confederate ships and
navigating rivers that were fullof mines and burning down
plantations and freeing peopleand had no formalized military
(22:09):
training, like no formalizedliteracy, and yet was a tactical
genius to the point that theNorthern Army like relied upon
her as a tactician, right?
I was like, versus you want topaint this as you know, like a
mammy with an archolepsymagically right.
And I'm like magically heardthe voice of God and guided a
(22:30):
few people to freedom.
Right.
So, like I said, my myexperiences educationally are
just like filled with moments ofme shutting down whatever like
the colonized version of thesestories and being like, no, I'm
sorry.
And sorry, you know, I'm sorryto this man, Hutton Mifflin, and
whoever else, you know, wrotethese like history books of the
night.
He's like, I'm not with it.
(22:51):
All of us is no.
I'm sure I drove many of myteachers crazy, with the
exception of this like wonderfulhistory teacher and my
wonderful Spanish teachers whojust thought this was hilarious.
Nicte-Ha (23:00):
But uh he sounds amazing.
Well, I mean, and also creditto your mom.
Like, honestly, you know, it'snot like it's not like Mexico
has traditionally told a veryprogressive story of its own
history, right?
I know that like there was amore emphasis on the indigenous
roots and reaching back, youknow, starting in the early
1900s.
(23:21):
But I do think that you still,you know, you're still
struggling inside the countrywith a lot of racism and
discrimination against theindigenous populations in
Mexico.
So, you know, credit to yourmom for for being an educated,
strong woman who was proud ofher history and who sought out
sources to like push backagainst that.
Because my understanding isthat that wasn't as usual,
(23:45):
especially not in the time thatshe was growing up in Mexico.
So she she must have been quitea woman to be so strong and so
educated in her own historybecause I know that that was
whitewashed a lot.
Osea (23:56):
I'd say shout out to my aunt, too.
My aunt, you know, statedMexico, you know, double masters
in history and in education.
So who do you think wasshipping me all these books that
I was then bringing to school?
And then just looking at myteachers, like, oh, you're not
bilingual.
I'm so sorry, let me translatethis for you, right?
So I'm sassy.
I will say yes, in terms of myhave a limited scope of
(24:19):
understanding of what educationis now in, you know, in the
country, but there have beenplenty of universities, UNAM is
one of them, you anybody seethat autonomous, that has put a
lot of effort in its search armsto making sure that these
stories and these histories arepreserved.
It's clear to me that both,like you're saying, the racism
has has perpetuated and existedfor a long time in Mexico, but
(24:42):
in personal opinion, we're nowfinally at a place where there
is a person in government whois, you know, clearly taking a
stand about these things and andtrying to give more relevance
at the national level tohonoring the First Nations.
I saw her inauguration.
Nicte-Ha (24:59):
Her inauguration was a very powerful statement to that
effect.
Osea (25:02):
Yes, it's it's a it's a big shift from what you're
describing.
Very, very modern, very, verynew.
But I think that also one thingthat I can say I've seen happen
in this country, not so much inNew York, though we've been
pushing for it, but certainly inthe Southwest, is you have the
Chicano movements, you have theAtsan movement, you have lots of
(25:23):
movements that have gone intotrying to reclaim and take back
narratives that at one pointpainted people as victimized and
secondary societies.
And I think that there's a lotof movement that happened in the
social justice and liberationfights in the 50s and 60s and
onward.
Brown power movement.
Right, brown power movementthat have refused to be silenced
(25:46):
in this regard.
You know, and while I'm sure Icould say, yeah, there's there's
plenty of controversy as tolike how they were received or
even how they continue to bereceived, these were definitely
steps in a direction of saying,I'm proud of who I am, and I'm
not going to whitewash it, andI'm not going to allow it to be
presented through a coloniallens.
And I know plenty of peopletoday, for example, out here,
(26:08):
that they don't want to bereferred to as Latinos.
That's just not a term thatthey identify with, right?
They identify as indigenous,they might identify as mestizo,
but because of the colorism,because of the racism, because
of the whitewashing, some ofthem have just dropped even the
identity of being called Latino,Latinax, Latinae, whatever,
because to them what they reallyare is indigenous or or
(26:30):
mestizo, right?
Which I totally understandbecause I can't say with
assurance that, like you'resaying, in native country or
culture that everything thatthey were or are is respected,
right?
So it's a complex story,whether you're here or you're
there, of how much our historiesand languages and cultures and
so forth have been honored,respected, and not minimized as
(26:52):
being less than the colonizerculture.
Nicte-Ha (26:56):
And I know this is sort of like a different topic
that I actually I want tointerview some people about, but
I know that there's actually abig, there's a significant
amount of controversy.
Like when Dansa Azteca startedshowing up to powwows in their
dansa outfits and doing it, likeinitially the reaction was
like, this is a fucking joke.
Like, who are these people?
They're not indigenous, we'rethey're not native.
(27:16):
So I know that the developmentof pan-Indian culture and
identity is relatively new,relatively recent, and can in
some cases gloss over the vastdiversity of indigenous culture
in North America, CentralAmerica, and South America,
right?
The United States Indigenouscommunity had a very different
(27:37):
experience of colonization insome in many ways than people in
Latin America.
I read this tremendous bookcalled Harvest of Empire, which
goes back to the founding of theUnited States, uh, well, the
discovery, colonization,founding, but the colonization
by European powers and the waythat the Spanish Empire was
(27:57):
structured and set up and theway the English British Empire
in North America was structuredand set up.
And it is amazing like how muchyou know those original
structures and interactions downto like in Mexico, the Spanish
encouraged marriages betweenSpaniards and Indigenous folks.
Then they encouraged that forreasons that like are nefarious,
(28:18):
but they still encourage that,right?
They recognize those unions.
Whereas like the North America,there was like apartheid from
the beginning.
They did not encourage orrecognize those marriages or
allow those children to havelike legal rights and standing.
And so you see that rollingforward in the way those the
different countries have evolvedand their policies have
(28:39):
evolved.
So it's a fascinating book.
You know, he's definitely notdefending the colonization, but
it's just interesting to see howthe even the foundations of the
two lead to differentviewpoints within the different
communities around race andethnicity and belonging,
indigenity, and all thedifferent names we call
ourselves.
Osea (29:17):
Is the the rules and the laws and the caste systems that
arose in Latin America aroundmiscegenation, right?
Very different.
I'm not saying nice, I'm notsaying great, I'm just saying
very different.
No, very different.
Than just very different fromthe United States.
Right, than the United States.
And so it's like something Itold people, my parents'
marriage and you know, my mom'sresulting pregnancy would have
(29:40):
been illegal if I had been borna few years prior, right?
Like they got married a fewyears after, you know, the love
Supreme Court ruling, right?
The one in Virginia about thethe mixture of Loving v.
Virginia, loving v.
Virginia, right?
So this is, you know, whereaslike we could go back for
generations and generations andGenerations of you know family
(30:02):
in Mexico where mestizaje wasbeing practiced, sometimes
forced, not all consensual to beabundantly clear, but certainly
mestizaje was something thatexisted.
And you know, you had lots andlots of people that were running
around for generations in myfamily that were part of
Mestizaje, you know, going backto even far beyond like
(30:23):
great-great-grandparents.
Whereas, you know, my dadmarries somebody who's Mexican,
and it's like, whoa, how is thisgonna work?
Right.
So, again, just the the thecultural frequency, right?
Which which you have, you know,mestizaje or miscegenation or
however you want to view it, andthen what that does to in a
(30:44):
family dynamic, like whetherthose children, for example, are
completely rejected, or whetherthose children are part of a
household and part of a familydynamic and they're recognized,
like that also has taken verydifferent paths between both
countries, right?
Nicte-Ha (30:58):
Yeah.
And I, you know, to your pointabout, you know, the narrative
of the indigenous nations justbeing victims in colonization, I
would have rejected that I heldthat belief or that feeling
until I read um 1491, the bookby Charles Mann, where he talks
about pre-contact cultures suchas we, you know, have evidence
for.
I think it's been updated andrevised.
(31:19):
And I was reading that book andI realized that I had, even in
condemning colonization, right,and rejecting it and being aware
of it, I had had in my own minddeprived the indigenous people
of the agency to decide whatthey believed, what God they
worshipped, how, you know,because he talks about how like
(31:42):
people were making decisions andhow they these were like among
themselves.
Osea (31:47):
I think like that the part of the story.
Nicte-Ha (31:51):
Right.
And that the and that the thethe colonizers came into
situations where there werepre-existing political tensions,
where there were pre-existingpolitical machinations that
people were making.
They saw the colon, they sawthe conquistadors and they
thought, like, hmm, how can Iuse these people to get the
kingship of this state or changethis or conquer this?
(32:13):
And I had never considered thataspect, right?
Even having all the knowledgethat I did about the
colonization of North America, Ihad completely ignored the
political agency andintelligence and pre-existing
relationships that thecolonizers entered into in Latin
America and in North Americatoo.
Osea (32:34):
Yep.
Nicte-Ha (32:34):
I just I hadn't hadn't even considered that.
And it was a big revelation formyself.
Osea (32:39):
Right.
They stepped into a landminedepending on which civilization,
right, we're going to talkabout, because even the story of
Malinsin, who's popularly knownas Malinche, right?
Like the Mexica people were animperial people and they were
busy conquesting the people, thethe other tribes, right
throughout Mesoamerica.
And so she ends up captured,resold, right, enslaved, but she
(33:04):
spoke languages.
She was educated and she camefrom a completely different
tribe.
And so, you know, Hernán Cortescomes along and she's smart,
she has political training,right?
She has diplomatic training.
So she utilizes that to heradvantage, you know, ultimately
with interest to protect her ownpeople who had been brutalized
by the Mexicas.
So we definitely can't saythat, you know, anybody was just
(33:28):
a victim or anybody was just athis.
There was a lot of politicalintrigue that was already
happening between the nationstates of the Mexican Empire and
the other tribes that they hadgone ahead and and you know
brought under their empire andforced to pay tribute or had
enslaved.
And so that led to just ahotbed of political intrigue and
(33:51):
conflict that the Spanishwalked right into, right?
Nicte-Ha (33:54):
And then and ended up using like they very
deliberately marriedconquistadores to women within
the hierarchy, the politicalhierarchy of the Mexica nation
and other important city-states.
That was a deliberate choicethat they made to do that,
right?
Osea (34:12):
Yep.
Nicte-Ha (34:13):
So it was interesting for me, you know, even feeling
like I had a good idea of thehistory and the horrors of
colonization to also realizethat I had been in my own way,
depriving my people of theirintelligence and their decision
making and their autonomy, evenwhen they were faced with this,
with the uh with the theSpanish, you know, coming in and
(34:35):
everything that followed.
Osea (34:37):
We we are not descendants of just passic victims, right?
Right.
It's really important not toinfantilize the histories of our
people.
And it's also really importantnot to treat everyone as a
behemoth, right?
Like every tribe, every nation,every group.
And like this is, for example,something I think a lot of
people don't understand.
I hate this word, but theAztecs, the Mexicas, we're not
(34:59):
the only First Nation inMesoamerica.
There are hundreds and hundredsand hundreds of original people
just in what is now consideredMexico, right?
You have tons and tons ofdifferent languages, tons and
tons, even of like Nahuatl.
There are different variationsof Nahuatl, right?
So from classic Nahuat to likemodern-day, like Huastec
Nahuatl, like there are tons ofvariations of just that language
(35:22):
that still continue to be usedby millions of people here, you
know, in the diaspora and alsoin Mexico and other parts of the
world.
So these stories that are told,like, oh, this was back in the
day, and oh, it was a monolith,and oh, they're gone now.
Like, no, none of that is true,right?
Nahuatl continues to be alanguage that is utilized in the
(35:43):
United States, in the diaspora,in Mexico, right?
Like you can take collegecourses in it, but it's still a
live language.
Nicte-Ha (35:50):
I have a workbook in it because I was trying, I was
trying to learn it.
Osea (35:55):
I'm still we might we might we might have the same
workbook.
I'm like, I'm laughing here,but for real, like I sit down
and I study it as well.
And so, but it's by nomechanism, the only language or
identity of Mesoamerica orMexico, right?
And so I think that that's oneof the problems that I've seen
(36:16):
just in like the way historygets taught, especially in the
United States, is this superoversimplification and not to
the benefit of the histories andthe origins of our people.
Nicte-Ha (36:26):
My biggest pet peeve is this obsession with human
sacrifice.
And I'm like, the cultures whosent who spent hundreds of years
burning, raping, pillaging, andmurdering across the world want
to come over here and lecturemy people about human sacrifice.
(36:49):
I'm like, what were thecrusades, if not a massive human
sacrifice?
Right.
You guys did horrific things toother human beings.
Osea (36:59):
Well, homie, we know it doesn't count when white people
do it.
Nicte-Ha (37:03):
But it's amazing.
All anyone says, like, oh yeah,the Aztecs sacrifice people.
And I'm like, that's whatyou're focusing on.
Not only that, but like thestructure of human sacrifice was
a highly ritualized structuredthing that had like very
particular, it wasn't just like,oh, we're randomly sacrificed,
although the Mashika, I maybewere a little more enthusiastic
(37:24):
than other people about this,right?
But again, it's also looking atthat and condemning them
specifically is like you'reforgetting that power structures
are human structures, whetherthey're in the Mashika or
they're in Rome, right?
You have people trying to getand maintain power and
legitimacy and authority,whether that comes through, you
(37:48):
know, the Mexica power structureor it comes through, you know,
the Roman power structure or theChurch of England.
Osea (37:55):
I mean, that's where the gag is.
Like, how is it that we'regonna get all up in arms about
this ritualistic practice,right?
But we're not gonna talk aboutthe Roman circuses, we're not
gonna talk about the gladiators.
That was basically humansacrifice in a ring for sport,
for sport, for pureentertainment.
So, again, as the Spanishphrase goes, Elojo no mira pa'
(38:15):
adentro, elojo no mira paraadentro, right?
It's really easy again todehumanize a people, right?
To try to classify them assavages or barbaric or whatever
the story is uniquely terribleand bloody.
And and and ergo, they neededto be colonized, and ergo, they
needed to be eliminated, andergo they needed to be conquered
because of how savage and howbarbaric their practices were.
(38:37):
You know, from the Romans allthe way from the trade.
Right to the Portuguese weredoing, right?
Like, so that was the Congo.
Right.
Hello.
Yeah.
So again holy crap.
(38:58):
Right.
And and let's let's be honest,continues to this day.
Yeah, continues to this day,right?
The genocides continue to thisday, that the the expansion
into, as an example, CentralAfrica for the pursuit of the
same shit that they were tryingto get hundreds of years ago.
They're still after preciousminerals, they're still after
rare metals, they're still afterall of this.
(39:18):
This is not changed in theCongo, this is not changed in
Sudan, right?
This is still what is happeningright now, but it's the Mexica
that are barbaric, right?
So again, eloho no mire pa'dentro, because it's cool when
white people go and do it,right?
Because that's the case.
Oh, that's capitalism, Chica.
That's capitalism.
It's progress.
(39:38):
Right.
So that's that's what, youknow, this goes back to my
entire educational history oflike call a spade a spade.
Like, oh, we're not we're notgonna touch genocide, but yes,
please tell me how barbaric, youknow.
Nicte-Ha (39:51):
Let's burn their entire libraries and then talk
about how they're an illiteratepeople.
Osea (39:56):
Right.
Well, I'm gonna be honest, itkind of reminds me of a certain
thing that's happening in theMiddle East, right?
Right.
But it just, you know, it it ittries to give some kind of
semblance of an excuse to saythis is why we need to eliminate
a people, but we're gonna paintsomebody as the savage and say
that that is what excuses forcommitting genocide against
(40:17):
unoriginal people of the area.
So it's the same, it's the samesad ass excuse, right?
Whether we're gonna use it totalk about contested territory
in the Middle East or whetherwe're gonna use it to talk about
territory in Latin America orin the African continent.
It's the same story, the samestory of white supremacy, of
imperialism, right?
Just washrooms repeat,different, you know, different
(40:40):
groups committing it, and theneverybody else trying to silence
whoever tells the story of noin fairness what what actually
happened, right?
Like I said, you know, the factthat I am maybe not, maybe,
maybe, well, under this federalgovernment, we'll see.
But it's like, you know, I canstill tell the story of what
happened in Latin America andfor the time being still be
(41:01):
free.
They're really trying toeliminate that though.
Nicte-Ha (41:04):
No, they're working hard on it.
Girl, I was born in Mexico.
I was born in Mexico, so mypassport says birthplace,
Mexico.
Oh.
And I'm like, great.
I'm not, I'm a, you know, Ihave a certificate of birth
abroad, but are these peoplelooking at eliminating that too?
Is my citizenship at risk?
You know, under these people, Iwould say yes.
Right.
(41:24):
You can't presume that theanswer is no, I think.
My interview with this week's guest will be broken
into several episodes.
As a friend of mine for manyyears, Osea is a bruja, an
activist, and a curandera in NewYork City.
Because of the depth of ourconnection, our conversations
were extremely wide-ranging,covering history, identity,
belief, family, racism,colonialism, spirituality, and
(00:22):
religion.
This first episode is anintroduction to her, her history
of activism, and the educationthat she had from her family to
craft her own identity.
Thank you for tuning in forpart one of my conversation with
Osea.
I hope that you find ourconversations as fascinating and
thought-provoking as I did.
And I've known her for many,many years, and I can't wait to
(01:23):
have this conversation becauseshe has one of the most
interesting personal journeysthat I have had the privilege to
hear a little bit about.
And so I'm excited to get intoher history, her journey, and
her activism and her building ofcommunity.
Thank you for having me.
Osea (01:44):
It's only taken us a couple decades to sit down.
Nicte-Ha (01:46):
Just a couple of decades.
We had we had someconversations about this before.
True, true.
Life just keeps getting it.
It's true.
Before the world was right, andbefore the world was like so on
fire.
Right.
But we could we can talk aboutthat later.
So first, um, can you talkabout how you came to the name
Osea and what it means to youand how you chose it?
Osea (02:06):
Sure.
So I'm pretty active inactivist circles here in New
York City.
And so for our own safety, wetend to keep changing names
pretty often.
Not our government names,obviously, but you know, we use
other pseudonyms uh for thepurpose of what we do, and you
just kind of keep rotating them.
And so I've gone through a few.
(02:27):
This is not my only one, butone of the things that I was
teased about to a certain degreeis my Spanish is a mix of a lot
of the people that I've beenaround.
But the folks that I grew uparound and learned Spanish from,
it was Mexico City Spanish.
And so one of the things thatwill often happen if you speak
Mexico City Spanish is theinterjection like, like this,
(02:50):
like this, like this, is osea.
Osea, da da da.
So I would explain things topeople and then clarify with the
like.
You know, lo que necesitas, esque so because I would interject
oseas all the time into thethings I was saying in very
filango Spanish, o sea, kind ofstuck.
Nicte-Ha (03:09):
One of the things that I try and highlight in this
podcast and in my interviews isthat so many of us, particularly
Latinos, but or mestizos orhowever we want to identify
those of us here in LatinAmerica who are a mix of the
descendants of the indígena, theindigenous people who lived
here before colonization, thecolonizers, slaves that they
(03:34):
brought from West Africa.
You know, we're this rich mixof people.
And so some of us we're, youknow, the colors of the rainbow
dark hair, curly hair, lighthair, blonde, blue-eyed, dark
skin, light skin, median skin,and all of those, you know,
those physical features, thoseaccidents of genetics, they also
impact our daily lives, how weidentify, how we're raised, our
(03:57):
experiences in our community,and also with the larger
American society.
And so just if you if you'recomfortable sharing and talking
about how you understood thatidentity when you were younger
and how that's evolved over theyears.
I know we talked a little bitabout it in our pre-show
(04:18):
conversations, but just layingthe groundwork for people so
that they can understand yourjourney toward your current
identity and how you saw thatwhen you were younger.
Osea (04:26):
Sure.
And I'll sort of plug this asthe places where we live and who
we're surrounded by cause thatto continue to evolve.
All right, so I'll I'll getinto that and sort of tracing
this history.
So, you know, I was born in theUnited States, mixed parentage,
you know, one parent fromMexico of Mestiza heritage, and
(04:47):
one parent from the UnitedStates from the South, Irish,
British heritage, but I'd saymore like Irish American and
very, very southern.
And so that already, in and ofitself, is like two very
different worlds combining.
And my parents met outside ofthe United States because my mom
spoke a whole bunch oflanguages, and my dad only spoke
one.
And my mom found him on a trainwith a bunch of students and
(05:09):
was like, This guy is a hotmess.
He does not know where he'sgoing to take his students to go
stay.
And I was like looking at a bigfold-out map.
This is 1970s, long before youknow internet was available.
And you know, it's not exactlylike yellow pages of like go
find a hotel while you're ridinga train in Italy.
And so my mom spoke fourlanguages and basically was
(05:31):
like, Can I help you?
Because this is concerning.
As my dad's like trying to findsomething on a map while he's
already on the train and sheunderstood English among the
four languages that she spokeand was like, Just I'm gonna
help you.
Like, get off the train at thenext stop.
So I, you know, I laughedbecause you know, my dad was a
(05:51):
hyper, you know, confident, um,you know, very skilled guy,
renaissance man, he'd been inthe military.
But I just laughed becausetraveling through Europe, my mom
was the boss.
Like, she just was like, getoff the train, I'm gonna handle
this.
And so she went and negotiated,you know, their stay for him
and like all the kids inItalian, and actually like
brought down the price and soforth, and was like ready to be
(06:12):
like, All right, good luck,American, with whatever nonsense
you have planned.
And everybody was like, No, youcannot leave us here.
We can't speak the samelanguage.
Please don't, please stay,please hang out with us.
So, you know, we are lost.
Nicte-Ha (06:27):
We are lost, we are monolingual Americans.
Osea (06:30):
Help us, monolingual Americans, and so you know, my
mom, I guess, felt bad and wasalso like, fine, I guess I'll
take a three-day paid retreat atthis, you know, pensione to
help out this poor Americanteacher and all of these high
schoolers.
And so that was the beginningof my dad trying to kick it to
my mom, and then my mom justlike went back to Mexico, was
(06:51):
like, okay, American, bye, afterall of that, and then it was
like a long distance, you know,him trying to convince her to
come to the states.
So, you know, you have verydifferent migration stories,
very different stories whereit's like people, you know, for
whatever their reasons, theyleft their home country and they
felt an intense need to be inthe United States or to get out
of their home country becausethe long history in Latin
(07:13):
America of things going sidewaysfor various and sundry reasons.
It's sometimes, you know, ourown country has some culpability
in Operation Condor.
But the situation of, you know,my own heritage, yeah, yeah,
that's like a whole otherconversation, right?
The situation of my ownparentage is yeah, I could just
do a podcast about like how wehave gotten in the midst of you
(07:34):
know destabilizing all of LatinAmerica.
But, anyways, my personalsituation was that my mom was
like, I'm not needing to leaveMexico, thanks.
Like, your country hasproblems.
So I think that that's a reallyimportant place to start with
how I'm explaining even my ownidentity, is in no way, shape,
or form did my mother see comingto the US as like the huge
(07:55):
upgrade, right?
She had a career, she was happywith her career, she had an
education, she traveled freely,independently as a woman in
Europe, obviously helping, youknow, my poor father handle his
life, right, while he wastraveling in Europe.
She was a very independent gal,right?
And very proud of what she wasand what she was capable of.
(08:16):
She spoke four languages.
So coming to the States for hertook a lot of convincing.
And I think that I grew up withthe impression that my mother
is like, well, I'm here now.
They started off in themountain west.
They started off in themountain west, like when she
moved to the States, she startedoff in the mountain west with
him.
I was born in the mountainwest, and it was cold and there
(08:38):
was snow.
And she was like, Okay, Ithought this was cute to like
come and visit for skiing, butthe I was not sold on this bill
of goods that this would justcontinue to be like this.
And so by the time I was five,my parents moved down to Florida
because mom was not having it,and dad was not gonna have an
unhappy mom.
So there's just there, there'sa lot to unpack there that like
(09:00):
when my mom got to the States,you know, she moved away from
everything that she knewculturally, linguistically, and
so forth.
And so was very adamant onraising my sister and I 100%
exclusively in Spanish, likewith books with materials that
would detail to us our heritage,our history, and absolutely no
backing down and being like, oh,well, you're in the state, so
(09:23):
your identity is just this, oryou know, that one is better
than the other, one is dominantto the other.
Like, no.
I grew up with tons and tonsand tons of educational
materials, um, and just sort ofbeing drilled into me about like
the the Mesoamerican history,um, not just the history of
Mexico as a country, butMesoamerican history,
pre-Columbian history,understanding belief systems,
(09:45):
practices.
They were not calledmythologies, because mythology
is a way of like passing offsomething as being a fairy tale
or a story.
It was it was taught as likethese were beliefs and
practices.
And we had a bunch of art in myhome growing up that were like
replicas of pre-Columbian art,like primarily Mexica art in our
house.
So, like statues and sculpturesand and so forth.
(10:07):
So I grew up with a prettyinteresting from the time I was
pretty young, working knowledgeof all of this history,
heritage, and then language,like I said, where I I spoke
Spanish before, I spoke English,but I grew up where the
household was really 50-50English-Spanish, and then the
Spanish that I speak is alsoinfluenced by Nahuatl.
(10:28):
You know, there are a lot ofwords and phrases that are that
come from Nahuatl, and soindigenous language, right?
And so even when I was inschool, I felt like I was
correcting people all the timefor the time I was a little kid,
because in the United States,there's a very interestingly
limited view by many of what aMexican is or who a Mexican
(10:51):
could be or look like, or youknow, the stereotypes or that is
on both sides of the culture,too.
Correct.
And so I, you know, from thetime I was very little, I was
definitely course correctingeverybody around me because they
would make statements like,Well, you don't look Mexican.
I'm like, really, how much timehave you spent in Mexico?
(11:12):
I'm just curious.
Like, I would love to know whatyour findings are based off of.
Because what if I were to sayto you, you don't look
Anglo-Saxon, right?
Like, you know, that this isbut I mean, like, these are
things that would have from thetime I was little where they
would be like, Well, you don'ttalk Mexican.
I'm like, guess what?
Talking Mexican's not alanguage, bruh.
You know, I'm so sad for youthat you only speak one.
(11:33):
That sounds very limiting.
So, and you barely speak itwell.
Yikes.
So I grew up very, very sassyin terms of being very proud of
all the things that I am.
And I think what helped is justhaving parents that also
encouraged the sassiness.
My mom was very insistent,where she was like, This was
Mexico.
Let's go back to the 1800s andtalk about all of this territory
(11:56):
was ours, right?
So I got into it.
I think I remember in likeseventh grade, I had a history
teacher that tried to teach someother version of history.
And I was like, no, no, sir,hold on one second.
Like, let me clarify some ofthe things that you were saying,
because that's not what thisis.
And also, like the Texans didthis, and they, you know, they
broke a promise that they hadmade to the Mexican government
(12:17):
about becoming Mexican citizens,they weren't even Texans, they
were Mexican citizens, correct.
And so, and and the teacherdidn't want to hear it, and so I
remember I went home and I waslike, Mom, I'm gonna need to
bring in some of those bookswith the photographs, and so I
remember coming back to schoolthe next day in seventh grade
with like a stack of historicalbooks.
I was literally, I was like, Iwas like, sir, I hate to break
(12:41):
this to you, but everythingyou're saying is wrong, right?
Like, my people are studiedpeople.
Um everything you're saying iswrong.
Here's all the evidence ofthat.
Like, here are the the signedagreements which were broken by
the people in Texas.
Like, so let's get into it.
And and the guy got so mad, hegot so so mad, he wanted to like
send me out of the class.
I was like, Yeah, let me gotake it up with our assistant
(13:03):
principal since you don't seemto know how to teach the
material.
I'm good, and just like walkedout with my books to the AP,
like, hi, no, I'm very concernedabout the quality of my
education because it seems likeum your person isn't qualified
over here.
So can we please get a check inon this curriculum?
Again, probably like 12 or 13years old.
So, and then my dad would justlike come raging in because
again, he was an educator, andhe'd be like, Why?
(13:26):
Why are you guys not qualified?
Like, what part of what mydaughter showed you did not
clarify the fact that thisperson has not accurately
prepared their curriculum forstudy?
He, I should also point out,was a history teacher.
Like my schools, my classmatescaught it all day, every day.
We were just like a wreckingball of not only am I not going
(13:46):
to stand down, like not only amI not going to be like, okay,
you know, I'm gonna just piledive through all of this, and
I'm not going to stop until youcorrect this, right?
So, my history of whatever youwant to call it, activism,
advocacy, fight the power whenit's wrong, right?
Like that is from tiny, and youknow, it and a lot of it came
(14:07):
out of education and came out ofthe refuse to allow the stories
of my people, our people, to betaught in a denigrating way.
Like I remember again goingthrough history courses where
(14:33):
the very little that they wouldsay about Mesoamericans is like
colonization.
And you know, they would eithertalk about Columbus or they
would talk about the history ofthe Cortes, the conquistadors,
etc.
And I was like, let me get thisstraight.
You're gonna skip over howadvanced the civilization was,
you're gonna skip over the factthat the Spanish came with
(14:53):
diseases and they had no runningwater, like they didn't have
the same kind of aqueducts, theydidn't have the same level of
technology.
Oh, but our people were theinferior ones.
Like, no, no, no, no, no.
Check this out.
And so, like I said, I wouldshow up at school with all kinds
of like books and historicaldocuments.
I'm going to the library, I wasextra, I was extra, extra, just
(15:15):
to be like, you really need torewrite this curriculum because
it's trashed.
Like the fact that you thinkthat the focus of our people is
simply on how they wereconquered, and it has nothing to
do with their historicalrelevance, right?
As an empowered and intelligentand artistic empire.
Like, not that I like empires,I'm kind of anti-imperialist,
(15:36):
but the point of my story islike, how are you gonna erase
the history, the relevance, thecontributions of hundreds of
nations of native people andjust tell the stories of a
couple of Spaniards that franklybrought a lot of disease and
trafficked the people that theyencountered?
I didn't realize that historywas supposed to focus on the
criminals, right?
(15:57):
When you point it out that way,it sounds really gross.
Like, why are we focusing onthe criminals and not the
people, you know, that forhundreds and hundreds of years
established something relevantof meaning, right?
Because we do this for theRomans, we do this for the
Greeks.
We have plenty of othercultures and civilizations that
we emphasize their art, theirhistory, their literature, their
contributions to society.
(16:18):
Why should it be any differentfor these massively impactful
cultures of the Americas?
So that was my fight in school.
I was I was just not having it.
That expanded definitely intolike the rest of the Latin
American world where they'd wantto play the same game with you
know the Caribbean.
And I was like, I'm not eventhat, but I know you're wrong.
(16:39):
Since clearly you got thiswrong the first time.
Let me come back at you withsome more information.
My history teacher, may he restin peace.
He's no longer with us.
He used to call himself Emperorand then his last name, and he
had that little like placard onhis desk.
But my history teacher made mea little placard and it was like
comandante in my name, becauseevery time I would come to
(17:00):
class, he already knew that Iwas gonna come into class on 11
ready to debate anybody.
And like I said, to the creditof this teacher in the schools
that I went to, when I was inhigh school, I wasn't in I was
in an internationalbaccalaureate program.
So badass.
I don't know how much folksknow about international
baccalaureate programs.
I know about IB.
Nicte-Ha (17:18):
Well, and also like the focus on IB is like global
citizenship, knowledge,project-based learning,
presentations, independentresearch.
There's a lot of really goodstuff in IB programming.
Osea (17:31):
So I was I was blessed to be in a public school IB program
and that encouraged debate,right?
That encouraged criticalreasoning, that encouraged
databased questions and reasonand so forth.
They thankfully did not shut itdown.
You know, whether I was inSpanish class or history class
or even like English literature,you know, whenever we covered a
topic or a subject, especiallythat related to Latin America or
(17:54):
Afro-Latin Caribbean, and Iwould come with heat for my
classmates and some of theirconclusions, you know, and
presumptions historically thatagain were very white
Eurocentric.
I was blessed and that I hadprofessors that were like, I'm
gonna let y'all deal with her.
Like I'm not, I'm not gonnastep in.
And then the pushback was justmake sure that you always have
evidence for what you're saying,make sure, right, that you're
(18:15):
thinking critically, that you'reanalyzing the bias of your
sources, like things that Ithink would be really helpful
today and would get us out ofsome of the shitshow that we're
in, right?
In modern society, if more ofus had that kind of intellectual
development.
Um instead of reading.
Nicte-Ha (18:30):
Well, and also, I mean, you know, it speaks to
your parents, you know, like myparents definitely, my mom was
very invested in making surethat we knew, you know, the
people's history of the UnitedStates before that book got
written.
Right.
So shout out to her therewasn't as much of a focus on
like pushing it inside theclassroom, but she would see
(18:52):
what we got and then she'd belike, let me tell you what this
really is, or let me tell youwhat was happening around this.
But most of her focus was onthe black experience in the
United States because her dad isblack and her great-grandfather
or her grandfather was black,and so sh her connection to the
(19:13):
history of the United States andher, you know, desire to make
sure that we knew at least someof the terrible history of the
states um was through that lens.
So there was a little bit offocus.
She knew a little bit aboutLatin America, and she she's an
extensive reader, but I thinkthat was less of a focus.
And plus it was in California,which is like 75% mexicanos.
(19:37):
My hometown was actuallymajority, majority mexicano or
majority Latino.
Interestingly, the Californiahistory, there was more of a
focus on Spanish occupation ofCalifornia versus like Mexican
history at all.
Like I don't think I don't eventhink we learned about Latin
American history in our historyclasses.
(19:57):
Like I think it was maybe apage.
Osea (19:59):
So I'm I'm thinking about this because I'm like, boy, did
I force the hand of my teachers.
No, I mean that's awesome.
That they so at one point, likebringing it all back.
I don't even remember whatprovoked it, but I think there
was something that I read or sawthat was about the American
Indian movement and LeonardPelletier and the standoff at
Wounded Knee, and I would notlet go.
(20:21):
I think that, you know, we werewe were at some point in school
studying something that had todo with the tribes of, you know,
the original peoples of theUnited States.
And I remember like maybe wewere like talking about Custer.
I just remember like readingthis and I was like, this sounds
like ass.
Like, this sounds like there'smuch more to unpack here than
(20:41):
however they're telling thisstory.
And then I just ended up onthis really deep dive into
wounded knee, its history, theneventually come across the story
of Leonard Prelte, the AmericanIndian movement.
And again, I just remembergoing to school with my stacks
and stacks of books, and then myteachers just looking at me
like, What?
We were we were just gonna talkabout Custer.
(21:03):
I was like, no, we are not.
We're gonna talk about whatCuster represented exactly for
me, and we're gonna and we'regonna go into like this whole
saga and how this continued toplay out, and he's a political
prison, all this, and I thinkthat my teachers were like, Oh
god, we should have never, weshould have never, right?
So that's why I'm laughingbecause when I tell you, I was
(21:24):
just like this constant littleupstart that whenever it came to
telling the stories ofnon-white people, right, and
they would try to like glossover things or or paint things
in such a way of you know,people being the victims less
than, right, and never and neverbeing right, the the the
autonomous actors of their ownexperience.
(21:46):
Like even the story of HarrietTubman was really watered down,
and it's like I don't know whythey wanted to focus so hard on
her being narcoleptic.
And I was like, this woman wasa military genius.
She led campaigns of ofstealing Confederate ships and
navigating rivers that were fullof mines and burning down
plantations and freeing peopleand had no formalized military
(22:09):
training, like no formalizedliteracy, and yet was a tactical
genius to the point that theNorthern Army like relied upon
her as a tactician, right?
I was like, versus you want topaint this as you know, like a
mammy with an archolepsymagically right.
And I'm like magically heardthe voice of God and guided a
(22:30):
few people to freedom.
Right.
So, like I said, my myexperiences educationally are
just like filled with moments ofme shutting down whatever like
the colonized version of thesestories and being like, no, I'm
sorry.
And sorry, you know, I'm sorryto this man, Hutton Mifflin, and
whoever else, you know, wrotethese like history books of the
night.
He's like, I'm not with it.
(22:51):
All of us is no.
I'm sure I drove many of myteachers crazy, with the
exception of this like wonderfulhistory teacher and my
wonderful Spanish teachers whojust thought this was hilarious.
Nicte-Ha (23:00):
But uh he sounds amazing.
Well, I mean, and also creditto your mom.
Like, honestly, you know, it'snot like it's not like Mexico
has traditionally told a veryprogressive story of its own
history, right?
I know that like there was amore emphasis on the indigenous
roots and reaching back, youknow, starting in the early
1900s.
(23:21):
But I do think that you still,you know, you're still
struggling inside the countrywith a lot of racism and
discrimination against theindigenous populations in
Mexico.
So, you know, credit to yourmom for for being an educated,
strong woman who was proud ofher history and who sought out
sources to like push backagainst that.
Because my understanding isthat that wasn't as usual,
(23:45):
especially not in the time thatshe was growing up in Mexico.
So she she must have been quitea woman to be so strong and so
educated in her own historybecause I know that that was
whitewashed a lot.
Osea (23:56):
I'd say shout out to my aunt, too.
My aunt, you know, statedMexico, you know, double masters
in history and in education.
So who do you think wasshipping me all these books that
I was then bringing to school?
And then just looking at myteachers, like, oh, you're not
bilingual.
I'm so sorry, let me translatethis for you, right?
So I'm sassy.
I will say yes, in terms of myhave a limited scope of
(24:19):
understanding of what educationis now in, you know, in the
country, but there have beenplenty of universities, UNAM is
one of them, you anybody seethat autonomous, that has put a
lot of effort in its search armsto making sure that these
stories and these histories arepreserved.
It's clear to me that both,like you're saying, the racism
has has perpetuated and existedfor a long time in Mexico, but
(24:42):
in personal opinion, we're nowfinally at a place where there
is a person in government whois, you know, clearly taking a
stand about these things and andtrying to give more relevance
at the national level tohonoring the First Nations.
I saw her inauguration.
Nicte-Ha (24:59):
Her inauguration was a very powerful statement to that
effect.
Osea (25:02):
Yes, it's it's a it's a big shift from what you're
describing.
Very, very modern, very, verynew.
But I think that also one thingthat I can say I've seen happen
in this country, not so much inNew York, though we've been
pushing for it, but certainly inthe Southwest, is you have the
Chicano movements, you have theAtsan movement, you have lots of
(25:23):
movements that have gone intotrying to reclaim and take back
narratives that at one pointpainted people as victimized and
secondary societies.
And I think that there's a lotof movement that happened in the
social justice and liberationfights in the 50s and 60s and
onward.
Brown power movement.
Right, brown power movementthat have refused to be silenced
(25:46):
in this regard.
You know, and while I'm sure Icould say, yeah, there's there's
plenty of controversy as tolike how they were received or
even how they continue to bereceived, these were definitely
steps in a direction of saying,I'm proud of who I am, and I'm
not going to whitewash it, andI'm not going to allow it to be
presented through a coloniallens.
And I know plenty of peopletoday, for example, out here,
(26:08):
that they don't want to bereferred to as Latinos.
That's just not a term thatthey identify with, right?
They identify as indigenous,they might identify as mestizo,
but because of the colorism,because of the racism, because
of the whitewashing, some ofthem have just dropped even the
identity of being called Latino,Latinax, Latinae, whatever,
because to them what they reallyare is indigenous or or
(26:30):
mestizo, right?
Which I totally understandbecause I can't say with
assurance that, like you'resaying, in native country or
culture that everything thatthey were or are is respected,
right?
So it's a complex story,whether you're here or you're
there, of how much our historiesand languages and cultures and
so forth have been honored,respected, and not minimized as
(26:52):
being less than the colonizerculture.
Nicte-Ha (26:56):
And I know this is sort of like a different topic
that I actually I want tointerview some people about, but
I know that there's actually abig, there's a significant
amount of controversy.
Like when Dansa Azteca startedshowing up to powwows in their
dansa outfits and doing it, likeinitially the reaction was
like, this is a fucking joke.
Like, who are these people?
They're not indigenous, we'rethey're not native.
(27:16):
So I know that the developmentof pan-Indian culture and
identity is relatively new,relatively recent, and can in
some cases gloss over the vastdiversity of indigenous culture
in North America, CentralAmerica, and South America,
right?
The United States Indigenouscommunity had a very different
(27:37):
experience of colonization insome in many ways than people in
Latin America.
I read this tremendous bookcalled Harvest of Empire, which
goes back to the founding of theUnited States, uh, well, the
discovery, colonization,founding, but the colonization
by European powers and the waythat the Spanish Empire was
(27:57):
structured and set up and theway the English British Empire
in North America was structuredand set up.
And it is amazing like how muchyou know those original
structures and interactions downto like in Mexico, the Spanish
encouraged marriages betweenSpaniards and Indigenous folks.
Then they encouraged that forreasons that like are nefarious,
(28:18):
but they still encourage that,right?
They recognize those unions.
Whereas like the North America,there was like apartheid from
the beginning.
They did not encourage orrecognize those marriages or
allow those children to havelike legal rights and standing.
And so you see that rollingforward in the way those the
different countries have evolvedand their policies have
(28:39):
evolved.
So it's a fascinating book.
You know, he's definitely notdefending the colonization, but
it's just interesting to see howthe even the foundations of the
two lead to differentviewpoints within the different
communities around race andethnicity and belonging,
indigenity, and all thedifferent names we call
ourselves.
Osea (29:17):
Is the the rules and the laws and the caste systems that
arose in Latin America aroundmiscegenation, right?
Very different.
I'm not saying nice, I'm notsaying great, I'm just saying
very different.
No, very different.
Than just very different fromthe United States.
Right, than the United States.
And so it's like something Itold people, my parents'
marriage and you know, my mom'sresulting pregnancy would have
(29:40):
been illegal if I had been borna few years prior, right?
Like they got married a fewyears after, you know, the love
Supreme Court ruling, right?
The one in Virginia about thethe mixture of Loving v.
Virginia, loving v.
Virginia, right?
So this is, you know, whereaslike we could go back for
generations and generations andGenerations of you know family
(30:02):
in Mexico where mestizaje wasbeing practiced, sometimes
forced, not all consensual to beabundantly clear, but certainly
mestizaje was something thatexisted.
And you know, you had lots andlots of people that were running
around for generations in myfamily that were part of
Mestizaje, you know, going backto even far beyond like
(30:23):
great-great-grandparents.
Whereas, you know, my dadmarries somebody who's Mexican,
and it's like, whoa, how is thisgonna work?
Right.
So, again, just the the thecultural frequency, right?
Which which you have, you know,mestizaje or miscegenation or
however you want to view it, andthen what that does to in a
(30:44):
family dynamic, like whetherthose children, for example, are
completely rejected, or whetherthose children are part of a
household and part of a familydynamic and they're recognized,
like that also has taken verydifferent paths between both
countries, right?
Nicte-Ha (30:58):
Yeah.
And I, you know, to your pointabout, you know, the narrative
of the indigenous nations justbeing victims in colonization, I
would have rejected that I heldthat belief or that feeling
until I read um 1491, the bookby Charles Mann, where he talks
about pre-contact cultures suchas we, you know, have evidence
for.
I think it's been updated andrevised.
(31:19):
And I was reading that book andI realized that I had, even in
condemning colonization, right,and rejecting it and being aware
of it, I had had in my own minddeprived the indigenous people
of the agency to decide whatthey believed, what God they
worshipped, how, you know,because he talks about how like
(31:42):
people were making decisions andhow they these were like among
themselves.
Osea (31:47):
I think like that the part of the story.
Nicte-Ha (31:51):
Right.
And that the and that the thethe colonizers came into
situations where there werepre-existing political tensions,
where there were pre-existingpolitical machinations that
people were making.
They saw the colon, they sawthe conquistadors and they
thought, like, hmm, how can Iuse these people to get the
kingship of this state or changethis or conquer this?
(32:13):
And I had never considered thataspect, right?
Even having all the knowledgethat I did about the
colonization of North America, Ihad completely ignored the
political agency andintelligence and pre-existing
relationships that thecolonizers entered into in Latin
America and in North Americatoo.
Osea (32:34):
Yep.
Nicte-Ha (32:34):
I just I hadn't hadn't even considered that.
And it was a big revelation formyself.
Osea (32:39):
Right.
They stepped into a landminedepending on which civilization,
right, we're going to talkabout, because even the story of
Malinsin, who's popularly knownas Malinche, right?
Like the Mexica people were animperial people and they were
busy conquesting the people, thethe other tribes, right
throughout Mesoamerica.
And so she ends up captured,resold, right, enslaved, but she
(33:04):
spoke languages.
She was educated and she camefrom a completely different
tribe.
And so, you know, Hernán Cortescomes along and she's smart,
she has political training,right?
She has diplomatic training.
So she utilizes that to heradvantage, you know, ultimately
with interest to protect her ownpeople who had been brutalized
by the Mexicas.
So we definitely can't saythat, you know, anybody was just
(33:28):
a victim or anybody was just athis.
There was a lot of politicalintrigue that was already
happening between the nationstates of the Mexican Empire and
the other tribes that they hadgone ahead and and you know
brought under their empire andforced to pay tribute or had
enslaved.
And so that led to just ahotbed of political intrigue and
(33:51):
conflict that the Spanishwalked right into, right?
Nicte-Ha (33:54):
And then and ended up using like they very
deliberately marriedconquistadores to women within
the hierarchy, the politicalhierarchy of the Mexica nation
and other important city-states.
That was a deliberate choicethat they made to do that,
right?
Osea (34:12):
Yep.
Nicte-Ha (34:13):
So it was interesting for me, you know, even feeling
like I had a good idea of thehistory and the horrors of
colonization to also realizethat I had been in my own way,
depriving my people of theirintelligence and their decision
making and their autonomy, evenwhen they were faced with this,
with the uh with the theSpanish, you know, coming in and
(34:35):
everything that followed.
Osea (34:37):
We we are not descendants of just passic victims, right?
Right.
It's really important not toinfantilize the histories of our
people.
And it's also really importantnot to treat everyone as a
behemoth, right?
Like every tribe, every nation,every group.
And like this is, for example,something I think a lot of
people don't understand.
I hate this word, but theAztecs, the Mexicas, we're not
(34:59):
the only First Nation inMesoamerica.
There are hundreds and hundredsand hundreds of original people
just in what is now consideredMexico, right?
You have tons and tons ofdifferent languages, tons and
tons, even of like Nahuatl.
There are different variationsof Nahuatl, right?
So from classic Nahuat to likemodern-day, like Huastec
Nahuatl, like there are tons ofvariations of just that language
(35:22):
that still continue to be usedby millions of people here, you
know, in the diaspora and alsoin Mexico and other parts of the
world.
So these stories that are told,like, oh, this was back in the
day, and oh, it was a monolith,and oh, they're gone now.
Like, no, none of that is true,right?
Nahuatl continues to be alanguage that is utilized in the
(35:43):
United States, in the diaspora,in Mexico, right?
Like you can take collegecourses in it, but it's still a
live language.
Nicte-Ha (35:50):
I have a workbook in it because I was trying, I was
trying to learn it.
Osea (35:55):
I'm still we might we might we might have the same
workbook.
I'm like, I'm laughing here,but for real, like I sit down
and I study it as well.
And so, but it's by nomechanism, the only language or
identity of Mesoamerica orMexico, right?
And so I think that that's oneof the problems that I've seen
(36:16):
just in like the way historygets taught, especially in the
United States, is this superoversimplification and not to
the benefit of the histories andthe origins of our people.
Nicte-Ha (36:26):
My biggest pet peeve is this obsession with human
sacrifice.
And I'm like, the cultures whosent who spent hundreds of years
burning, raping, pillaging, andmurdering across the world want
to come over here and lecturemy people about human sacrifice.
(36:49):
I'm like, what were thecrusades, if not a massive human
sacrifice?
Right.
You guys did horrific things toother human beings.
Osea (36:59):
Well, homie, we know it doesn't count when white people
do it.
Nicte-Ha (37:03):
But it's amazing.
All anyone says, like, oh yeah,the Aztecs sacrifice people.
And I'm like, that's whatyou're focusing on.
Not only that, but like thestructure of human sacrifice was
a highly ritualized structuredthing that had like very
particular, it wasn't just like,oh, we're randomly sacrificed,
although the Mashika, I maybewere a little more enthusiastic
(37:24):
than other people about this,right?
But again, it's also looking atthat and condemning them
specifically is like you'reforgetting that power structures
are human structures, whetherthey're in the Mashika or
they're in Rome, right?
You have people trying to getand maintain power and
legitimacy and authority,whether that comes through, you
(37:48):
know, the Mexica power structureor it comes through, you know,
the Roman power structure or theChurch of England.
Osea (37:55):
I mean, that's where the gag is.
Like, how is it that we'regonna get all up in arms about
this ritualistic practice,right?
But we're not gonna talk aboutthe Roman circuses, we're not
gonna talk about the gladiators.
That was basically humansacrifice in a ring for sport,
for sport, for pureentertainment.
So, again, as the Spanishphrase goes, Elojo no mira pa'
(38:15):
adentro, elojo no mira paraadentro, right?
It's really easy again todehumanize a people, right?
To try to classify them assavages or barbaric or whatever
the story is uniquely terribleand bloody.
And and and ergo, they neededto be colonized, and ergo, they
needed to be eliminated, andergo they needed to be conquered
because of how savage and howbarbaric their practices were.
(38:37):
You know, from the Romans allthe way from the trade.
Right to the Portuguese weredoing, right?
Like, so that was the Congo.
Right.
Hello.
Yeah.
So again holy crap.
(38:58):
Right.
And and let's let's be honest,continues to this day.
Yeah, continues to this day,right?
The genocides continue to thisday, that the the expansion
into, as an example, CentralAfrica for the pursuit of the
same shit that they were tryingto get hundreds of years ago.
They're still after preciousminerals, they're still after
rare metals, they're still afterall of this.
(39:18):
This is not changed in theCongo, this is not changed in
Sudan, right?
This is still what is happeningright now, but it's the Mexica
that are barbaric, right?
So again, eloho no mire pa'dentro, because it's cool when
white people go and do it,right?
Because that's the case.
Oh, that's capitalism, Chica.
That's capitalism.
It's progress.
(39:38):
Right.
So that's that's what, youknow, this goes back to my
entire educational history oflike call a spade a spade.
Like, oh, we're not we're notgonna touch genocide, but yes,
please tell me how barbaric, youknow.
Nicte-Ha (39:51):
Let's burn their entire libraries and then talk
about how they're an illiteratepeople.
Osea (39:56):
Right.
Well, I'm gonna be honest, itkind of reminds me of a certain
thing that's happening in theMiddle East, right?
Right.
But it just, you know, it it ittries to give some kind of
semblance of an excuse to saythis is why we need to eliminate
a people, but we're gonna paintsomebody as the savage and say
that that is what excuses forcommitting genocide against
(40:17):
unoriginal people of the area.
So it's the same, it's the samesad ass excuse, right?
Whether we're gonna use it totalk about contested territory
in the Middle East or whetherwe're gonna use it to talk about
territory in Latin America orin the African continent.
It's the same story, the samestory of white supremacy, of
imperialism, right?
Just washrooms repeat,different, you know, different
(40:40):
groups committing it, and theneverybody else trying to silence
whoever tells the story of noin fairness what what actually
happened, right?
Like I said, you know, the factthat I am maybe not, maybe,
maybe, well, under this federalgovernment, we'll see.
But it's like, you know, I canstill tell the story of what
happened in Latin America andfor the time being still be
(41:01):
free.
They're really trying toeliminate that though.
Nicte-Ha (41:04):
No, they're working hard on it.
Girl, I was born in Mexico.
I was born in Mexico, so mypassport says birthplace,
Mexico.
Oh.
And I'm like, great.
I'm not, I'm a, you know, Ihave a certificate of birth
abroad, but are these peoplelooking at eliminating that too?
Is my citizenship at risk?
You know, under these people, Iwould say yes.
Right.
(41:24):
You can't presume that theanswer is no, I think.
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